Despite the pioneering work of a handful of historians who have delved into the expansion of American slavery into the Mexican frontier, that story has remained a sidelight within the literature that rarely connects the evolution of the U.S.-Mexican borderlands to the rapid development of the Mississippi River Valley.14 The history of cotton in pre-annexation Texas has received even less attention, with mentions of the industry—and its connections to controversies over slavery—scattered among a handful of works.
